


Claimed

by Laughsalot3412



Series: Claimed verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Gratuitous brother touching, demon!John, is apparently my new tag for everything now, possessive!dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5801434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laughsalot3412/pseuds/Laughsalot3412
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The demon walked his new shell forward out of the shadows of the burning home. The big brother jumped to his feet. “Daddy!” He did not let go of the baby in his arms. “Daddy!”</p><p>“Yes,” the demon said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Claimed

The beginning of the story was always the same. One night in Lawrence, Kansas, a six-month old tasted blood on his lips. A nursery exploded and a warrior mother died. A big brother held his heart in his arms while he sat shivering on the curb, watching his life burn.

A yellow-eyed demon surveyed his work and found it lacking. Hell had been filled with rumblings for six months. Rumors boiled about this baby boy. He was their salvation, their destruction, their new master. He was a mystery. The demon did not know why their Lord made the pillars of hell tremble for this little man-child, but he recognized an advantage when he saw one.

He was not willing to let it wander away unsupervised. Advantages needed careful cultivation.

The flames burned fiercely, attracting everyone’s attention. No one noticed when a man stopped being himself (father, husband, solider) in flash of black eyes. No one except John Winchester, but the demon had him shut him up in a small room inside his own head. John Winchester without training was no threat, though his pure stubbornness gave the demon a few heartbeats of a fight.

The demon walked his new shell forward out of the shadows of the burning home. The big brother jumped to his feet. “Daddy!” He did not let go of the baby in his arms. “Daddy!”

“Yes,” the demon said.

 

 

The baby was crying. Again. It hadn’t stopped since they’d gotten to the motel room, even when the demon had slit open one of his fingers and let it suck his blood. He gripped it in one hand and stared at it. What could hell possibly see in an ugly little blob of dough?

“I think it’s broken,” the demon remarked. “Shame.” He let it drop onto one of the beds where it lay, stunned into momentary silence. Then it took a deep breath and opened its mouth. The demon rolled his eyes and braced himself for another scream.

It never came. There was a dart of movement from the corner of the room where he had stashed the brother. He had been keeping him for the last couple of days while deciding whether or not to kill him. The kid had stopped crying after the first day, which was a promising sign.

Now, the brother—Dean, the demon remembered now—clutched the baby with clumsy, small hands.

“He’s not broken,” he whispered. “He’s hungry. You need to feed him, like—like mom used—”

“Oh for the love of darkness, do _not_ start sniveling. It’s bad enough to have one of you going at it. I’ve got more important things to do, sonny boy. I don’t have time to feed a damn baby.”

Dean picked up the baby, staggering a little under the weight and then adjusting. “I’ll do it,” he said. “I know how. It’s okay, daddy. You can go do other things.”

The demon looked at the human boy. He was shaking, and his green eyes were full of water, but his grip on the child was secure. If he could take care of the thing, Dean would be a valuable asset.

“Sounds like a plan, kiddo,” the demon said. He dug out a bottle of baby formula from a bag some neighbor had given him. He used John’s strong hands to open it, even though he could have done it with a barely a thought. Dean thought he was a human—best to keep it that way.

He offered the can to Dean, but pulled it back when the kid reached for it. He arranged John’s face into a warning snarl. “Don’t let it choke on this stuff. The baby is important, you got that? If you’re not careful with it, it could end up like your mom. Dead as a doornail.”

t was like the thought had never occurred to him. Dean clutched the baby so hard that it whined. “No,” he said, all choked on snot and other goopy human stuff. “No.”

“Then be careful with it,” the demon said. He set the bottle of formula on the rickety table between the two motel beds. “I’ll be back later.”

It took some time to wrestle John Winchester’s arms into the sleeves of his jacket—the demon was still getting used to the body. After he walked out of the room, he waited outside the closed door, listening. It didn’t take long for the kid to start blubbing again. He was just glad he didn’t have to see it.

It took him a second to realize that the kid wasn’t just crying. He was repeating a word over and over, with so much desperation and love that the demon recoiled instinctively, reminded of chants that banished him to hell.

“ _Sammy, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy_ —”

It was the first time the demon remembered that the baby had a name. He walked away from the door, resolving to give it a new one.

 

 

Dean knew life hadn’t always been like this. He remembered his mom’s warm lips pressed against his forehead at night, and he remembered when his dad used to love him. It was different now, though, and his dad said that crying wouldn’t change anything.

Besides, he had to look after Sammy, and Sammy always cried when Dean cried.

Slowly, as they worked their way east through states that Dean had never heard of, he developed a theory. They finally stopped moving when dad found a little wooden house in the middle of a forest and said, “Home sweet home, boys.”

The house was nothing like their old one. It was dark, and the trees looked like they were trying to swallow it. It had two bedrooms. Dean and Sammy slept in one, and their dad slept in the other.

That first night, when their dad had fallen asleep, Dean whispered his theory to Sammy.

“See, Mom was good. When she was around, everything was good, and Dad was good. But then she died and all the good left with her. So it’s not Dad’s fault, Sammy. It feels like it is, but it’s really not.”

Sammy was sleeping, but he made this little humming sound like he knew exactly what Dean was saying.

 

 

The first time the demon hit Dean, he was unprepared for the surge of John Winchester inside his head. The man had been wasting away inside his own body for months now, and the demon hadn’t expected him to suddenly find his strength. It made the demon pause, hand raised. It only took a second to beat John back to his little personal hell inside his mind, but it made the demon pissed.

Dean held a hand to his face, white with shock, tears leaking silently down his face. From the bedroom, Samuel wailed.

“Now look what you’ve done,” the demon said.

Dean looked in the direction of the sound. For some reason, it made him take a deep breath and repeat his earlier statement.

“I’m not going.”

The demon slapped him carelessly across the other cheek. “Don’t sass me. I have no use for an idiot who can’t read or write, and hell if I’m going to teach you. Get outside and wait for that bus.”

“No.”

Another slap, harder this time to show the kid he meant business. The baby howled again and Dean flinched. The demon couldn’t help a nostalgic smile. It reminded him of home.

“Stop being so stubborn, Dean,” he said, his deep voice reasonable. “You’re making your brother upset, can’t you see that?”

Dean licked his lips, his eyes darting from his bedroom door to John’s face. “You have to feed him. And you can’t hit him, he’s too little.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t hit Samuel,” the demon said. He dropped a hand on Dean’s shoulder, pleased to feel the tension thrumming in the small body.

“Promise?”

“Sure. I told you— _Samuel’s_ important.” He shoved the boy toward the door. “Now go to school, you little brat.”

“Yes,” Dean said. He was more pliable now, looking relieved. The demon’s slaps stood out like red stars on both cheeks.

“ _Yes_ what?”

“Yes, sir.”

 

 

Sam’s first memory was of blood. He found the beautiful shiny thing that his Dean always held but wouldn’t let him touch. But his Dean wasn’t in the house. He was gone, the way he was gone sometimes for reasons that were still vague to Sam. Sam giggled to himself, wrapped up in delight at holding something that his Dean would never let him touch.

The shiny thing bit him. Sam threw it away and screamed, first in shock, then again when the pain hit.

There was blood on his hand. It was red and warm, but at least the salty smell of it was familiar. Sam knew what to do with blood.

He put his fingers in his mouth and licked it away with his own warm tongue. It wasn’t like when Dad let him lick blood. It didn’t taste the same, and the pain wasn’t going away. Sam cried, waiting for someone to come and make the pain stop.

He cried there a long time before Dad came in from outside and started yelling. His hand was pulled out of his mouth and Dad put something sticky on it to make the blood stay inside. It still hurt, so Sam kept crying.

“Want my _Dean!_ ”

Dad held him very tightly. “You don’t need Dean. You have me, Samuel.”

“Want! My! DEAN!”

“Well, you can’t have him,” Dad said. He held so tightly that Sam had even more pain. “You belong to me, Samuel. It’s time you start to learn that.”

Sam didn’t understand what Dad was saying, but he got the gist. Enough to make him wonder if his Dean was really not coming after all.

But that was when the door burst open, letting in a gust of cold air and a person in a puffy coat.

“Deeeeeean!” Sam wriggled out of Dad’s grabbing pain-hands and ran as fast as he could.

His Dean was on his knees, wrapping him in arms that never, ever hurt.

“Are you okay? Sammy, what happened? You have blood on your face! Dad, what happened?”

“He found one of your knives, Dean. How the hell did you manage that? I gave you those so you could protect him, not so he could slice himself open!”

“Sammy, let go of me for a second. Show me where you’re hurt.”

Sam offered up his hand. He started crying again when he saw the bandage. “Hurts. Dean. _Hurts._ ”

Dean took his hand very carefully. “I know, Sammy. But it doesn’t help to cry about it. You can’t cry, okay?” He raised Sam’s hand to his mouth and kissed it, right where the pain came from. “That’s to make it all better.”

“Really?” Sam wasn’t so sure.

“Yep.”

“Again!”

Dean kissed his palm a second time, and Sam really did feel the pain fade away.

 

 

Life took on a rhythm. Dean went to the same school for a couple months at a time before Dad moved them again. Dean finished first grade, then second. He learned how to read and write and use numbers. He learned about the demons.

“They want your brother,” his dad said. “They killed your mom, and they want to take Samuel away.”

“Why?”

“He’s special. When he finally grows up and learns to be useful, he’s going to be the most important person in the world.”

Dean already knew that.

So Dad taught him how to use a knife and salt and holy water. He taught him how to recognize the signs of a demon’s presence—black eyes, superhuman strength, and weird powers.

He was eight and Sammy was four when the first demons came for them.

Dad was gone, like Dad tended to be. Dean was chasing Sam around in the yard of their latest house, both of them shrieking happily. Two men walked up the road and stopped at their mailbox, watching them.

Sammy stopped playing and ran to grab Dean’s hand.

“They’re not good,” he whispered. “Dean. Make them go away.”

One of the men clucked his tongue. “Azazal has already started claiming him. What a bastard.”

“Boy’s young,” the other said. “We’ll beat it out of him.”

The pair walked forward, hands outstretched, creepy smiles on their faces. “Come on, kids. Let’s talk.” Their eyes flicked to black.

Dean’s knife flew out and caught it in the shoulder. With a flash of light and a sputter, the demon dropped to the ground.

The other demon stared at Dean in shock. “You little bastard. How the hell did you learn to do that?”

Dean tugged Sam up the steps of the house, hopping over the salt lines that protected it. “My dad taught me,” he said.

The demon laughed. “Your _dad_? Oh sonny, you’re in for a fun time. Might be a mercy to kill you now, actually.”

Sam slipped a glass bottle full of holy water into his hand. Dean lobbed it straight at the demon’s face, and he screamed when it shattered.

“We’ll get the boy!” the demon shouted. “Sooner or later! Tell Azazal he can’t hoard the goods forever!”

And then he left in a plume of black smoke.

It was very quiet. The two bodies lay on the ground, motionless. Dean wasn’t sorry they were dead, but he couldn’t stop himself from shaking.

“It’s okay, Sammy,” he said, and his voice was shaking too. “Don’t listen to them. They’re not going to take you. I won’t let them.”

Sammy wrapped his small arms around Dean’s waist and buried his face in his shirt. “I know.”

 

 

Claiming a human was a tricky business, but the demon was up to the challenge. He had done it before with humans that had special abilities or a pretty face that he wanted to make his own. It took equal parts tenderness and violence, and always total control. Calling a human by his real name helped. Claiming was a complete erasure of the human’s sense of self—surprisingly difficult to accomplish in these mud apes.

Particularly when they were as stubborn as Samuel Winchester.

“I don’t wanna train. I _want_ to finish my homework.”

“Samuel, put down the damn book and grab your gun. You think the demons will be scared off because you know how to multiply?”

Samuel glowered at him. He had an unfortunate tendency towards the useless—always reading or looking stuff up on that internet thing that humans seemed to love. He was no use to the demon if he couldn’t fight. “No.”

The demon was holding a pistol, and he raised the butt of it threateningly. “Samuel. Do what I tell you.”

“Look on the bright side, dad. At least he’s not doing crazy drugs.”

That voice grated on the Azazel’s nerves like the sound of holy music. It was brash, defiant, arrogant. He hated it more than any sound in this crazy life to which he’d committed himself.

The pistol-whip that had been intended for Samuel found a more satisfying target in Dean Winchester’s smirking face.

“No one asked you, Dean,” he growled.

Dean held the side of his face and choked on a laugh. “Yeah, well, I hand out opinions for free. I’m nice like that.”

Sometimes Azazel’s hatred of the boy was so pure it almost turned into love. He couldn’t afford to mess up his claiming of Samuel with too much mindless violence. All the blessings of hell on Dean Winchester for being there when his good ol’ dad needed him.

“Okay, okay!” Samuel said. He slammed the book shut and stood up. “I’m coming. I’m sorry. Just don’t.”

Azazel smiled at the boy, all curly dark hair and huge, desperate eyes. “Oh, Samuel. This isn’t under your control. Nothing is. The sooner you learn that, the better.”

 

 

Dean soon realized that his dad wasn’t going to keep his promise about not hitting Sam. So he developed a new skill along with knife-throwing and shooting: being obnoxious. His dad was so easy to jerk around, it was almost funny. His fuse would start to shorten and his hands would clench into fists when things didn’t go his way. Sammy was still too young to get it, at least the way Dean did. He would sit there with his stubborn pout and his “no, I won’t!” until Dean’s heart pounded in his chest. Because dad could really pack a punch, and Sammy was still so small.

So Dean learned the art of pre-teen snarkiness. A well-applied comment invariably re-directed his dad’s angry focus to him. Dean didn’t really mind. The violence had stopped being a surprise, and so it had lost most of its ability to hurt.

“I’m sorry,” Sammy said. He brought a cool washcloth to their room as an apology. He perched on the edge of the bed, looking miserable and small.

“It’s okay, Sammy. I’m the one who opened my big mouth.” Dean held the washcloth over his bruised cheek and had to hold back a sigh. He leaned back against the wall, letting it take his weight.

“I’ll do what he tells me to, next time.”

“No!”

“Why not?” Sam asked, looking at him like he was crazy.

Dean probably _was_ crazy, because the idea of Sam giving in to John Winchester filled him with dread. Their father had been treating Sammy differently now that he was old enough to understand more. Sometimes before bed, he pulled Sammy close and whispered things in his ear that made his little brother quiet and twitchy.

Dean didn’t know how to put those thoughts so that Sam would understand. “He—He treats you like you belong to him.”

Sam shrugged his small shoulders.

“What does that mean?” Dean asked, giving him a little shove.

“I guess I do.”

“What?” Dean took the washcloth off his face and stared.

Sam didn’t meet his eyes. “Well, I’ve got to belong to someone, right? That’s how it works.”

“Where the hell did you get that crazy idea?”

Sam just shrugged again.

“It’s dumb,” Dean said savagely. When Sam didn’t respond, he gave him a light slap on the back of the head. “Hey! Look at me! That’s a dumb idea, Sam Winchester.”

“I guess, but I can’t un-think it. I’ve tried.”

The weariness in Sam’s eyes was too old, too much for a kid who was eight years old. His huge, dark eyes seemed to take up most of his face. They made him look so vulnerable. Dean’s stomach clenched at the thought of all the ways their dad could break that breakable face.

“Okay,” Dean said, his voice a croak. He cleared his throat. Sam’s shoulder slumped, like he’d hoped Dean would disagree.

Dad’s hungry expression when he looked at Sammy filled Dean’s mind. It was like he wanted to possess him or eat him or something. That couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be the way things were supposed to be.

“You don’t belong to him,” Dean said.

Sam stared down at the floor.

Dean grabbed his brother’s chin and pulled his face around to look him in the eye. “Listen to me! I’m the one who pulled you out of that fire. I’m the one who changed your freakin’ diapers, and that was no picnic.”

Sam smiled, just a little, at that.

“So if you’re going belong to anyone…” Dean’s mouth went dry again, because Sam was looking at him with such a serious expression. Like his fate was being sealed. Like by just saying it, Dean could really take ownership. Maybe he could. His fingers pressed into the soft skin on his little brother’s throat, a bit too hard.

It felt wrong, but not as wrong as doing nothing. Dean took a deep breath.

“Here’s how I see it. If you belong to anyone, you belong to me. My brother. You got that?”

Sammy nodded, very slowly. Dean pressed his fingers just a little harder into his soft baby skin. Marking him.

“Say it, Sammy. So you remember.”

“Your brother,” Sam whispered.

Dean let him go. Sure enough, there were five red circles where his fingers had been. Suddenly, Dean felt very sick, like he was going to throw up. “I’m sorry.”

Not just for the bruises.

Sam smiled. He looked so happy that Dean couldn’t stand it. “It’s okay,” he said. He squirmed up closer to Dean, right up against him, and wrapped an arm around him. Like Dean hadn’t just hurt him, like it didn’t bother him at all.

Dean pressed the washcloth to the small, angry circles under Sammy’s chin, but Sam ducked his head. “Leave ‘em,” he said.

 

 

The demon sometimes wondered if he was losing his touch as Samuel continued to refuse to fall in line. But he was still young, barely old enough to understand what was going on and certainly not old enough to show useful special abilities. The demon’s blood he’d fed the baby would do its work soon, though, he was sure of it. So every day, he murmured his claiming words in Samuel’s ear.

_“Everything you are, you are because of me.”_

_“You owe me your life.”_

_“You’re different on the inside, and no one else will ever understand you.”_

Samuel just stood there, wooden. He never responded, never argued, never engaged. He took Azazel’s words like his daily dose of medicine.

And then he went to bed, where the demon could hear Dean Winchester whispering mysterious words of his own.

 

 

These were the good days. When their dad was off hunting demons alone and left them by themselves. It was summer, and they were staying in an old house in the Nebraska flatlands. The sky stretched for so many miles that Sam felt like he could fall right into it. The sweet smell of dry grass and dust scented the air.

He stretched up both of his hands as high as they would go, trying to grab the sky.

“What are you doing, goofball?”

Sam just stood on his tiptoes and reached higher. “Checking something.”

Dean stood beside him, hands on his hips. He was starting to grow into his body—less scrawny and more proportional. He had a handful of freckles flung across his face. Sam could feel his brother’s eyes on him, even when his own eyes were looking straight up at the sky.

Dean gave him another ten seconds of reaching before tickling him under the arms, making him yelp. Sam broke away for a second before coming after Dean in revenge. They threw and blocked easy punches until Sam dove for Dean’s legs, sending them both down in a jumble of limbs. They tussled around on the grass just because they could. It wasn’t the bitterly serious training their dad subjected them to, punctuated by his shouts and fists. They laughed and yelled and it was _fun_ , even when Dean jammed his elbow into Sam’s side and Sam ended up sitting on Dean’s stomach.

“Truce,” Dean groaned.

Sam grinned down at him, showing his teeth. “You’re just saying that because I’m winning.”

“Damn right,” Dean grumbled. “You weigh as much as a mountain.”

Sam looked at his brother, nothing but laughter on his face, perfectly relaxed even with Sam sitting on his chest. Maybe somewhere there was a world where Dean Winchester wasn’t comfortable with his brother shoved up against his body, but it wasn’t this one. Sam hummed, filled with light just by looking at him.

Sam brought his face down close to bump his nose against Dean’s. He liked how it blocked out the sun and made their own little space, carved out in a world of big skies and big fathers. Their breaths filled it, mixing together so they were breathing each other. The warmth made Sam feel so safe.

“Sammy?”

The word was just barely there, a small puff of air against his cheek. Sam wanted to live right here, in this space where nothing was scary and nothing hurt. He bumped Dean’s nose again, very gently, then rolled off his brother onto the dry grass.

Dean turned on his side, propping his head up on his arm. Sam faced his quizzical look, the smile that didn’t cover the concern in his eyes.

“What was that all about?”

“Checking something.”

“Yeah? Checking what?”

“That I can still feel happy.”

Dean’s face twisted, the way it did when he got hit too hard. “Oh, Sammy,” he said, his voice suddenly tired.

Sam swiped Dean’s arm out from under him, making him fall back against the grass. “Don’t sound so mopey,” he said. “I still can.”

 

 

It was that week, in that summer Nebraska house when Sam was eleven and Dean was fifteen, that Sam had his first vision.

Dean was sleeping, but Sam’s twitching from the other side of the bed woke him. He flung out an arm to poke Sam out of whatever dream he was having. They had spent the day running and swimming and wrestling, and he was too tired to do much else.

Sam sat bolt upright in the bed, gasping and holding his head. Dean shot up too, reaching for the demon knife he had under his pillow. But there was nothing to fight, just his brother whimpering and clawing at his head like it was going to explode.

“Sammy? Easy! Easy, Sammy, it’s just a dream.”

Dean grabbed Sam’s hands and held them tightly. Sam shuddered and opened his eyes slowly, like the darkness was a very bright light.

“Dean!” he croaked. “Woman in the room. Dark—” He winced, ducking his head again. “Dark h-hair.”

“It’s just a dream, Sammy,” Dean said. He rubbed Sam’s hands with his own. “Earth to Sammy. Wake up.”

“I’m awake!” Sam jerked his hands out of Dean’s grasp. It was too dark in the room for Dean to see his expression, but his words were pissy and desperate. “It wasn’t a dream. I mean, it was, but it wasn’t. It’s going to happen, Dean. I know it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The woman!” Sam almost shouted. “She burns to death in her house, just like mom! There was a demon in the house. I could feel it there with her!”

It shook Dean, the confidence in Sam’s voice. “It was a dream,” he repeated. “How could you dream something real? It doesn’t make sense. Go to sleep, Sammy. Everything will be okay in the morning.”

But in the morning, Sammy glued himself to his laptop and didn’t move again until he found a headline in Lipton, Nebraska—four hundred miles away: _Mother Burns In Nursery Fire_.

Dean didn’t get really worried until it happened again two nights later, and Sam found a matching headline in a Missouri newspaper the next morning. Sam snapped the laptop shut and bolted outside. Dean followed more slowly.

They stood together, hands in their pockets, staring at the huge Nebraska sky.

“This is what he meant,” Sam said. Dean didn’t have to ask who. “He’s always said I was different. _Special_.” He spat the word out. “Now I guess I know why. I can see demons killing people.”

Dean didn’t know what to say. Inside his pockets, his hands were shaking.

“Dean, people don’t have visions!” Sam said, pleading.

Dean shook his head.

“I mean, that’s not normal. It makes me some kind of weird freak!”

“No.” Dean knew how to answer that, at least. “You’re not a freak, Sammy.”

“I’m different on the inside, and no one else will ever understand me.”

Dean whipped his head around to look at Sam. Because the words had sounded wrong, like Sam had memorized them and was repeating them by rote. “What?”

Sam’s eyes were wide in what Dean recognized was panic. “He said. And it’s true. It’s all true.”

Dean shoved Sam so hard that his brother stumbled backward. He advanced on him, shoving Sam again and then again, pushing him back up against the faded siding of the house. Sam didn’t even try to stop him.

“No,” Dean growled. His whole body rumbled with it. Some part of him knew that this was his own way of panicking.

“That’s why he wants me,” Sam babbled, like Dean hadn’t even spoken. “I’m like a…a demon radar. He wants to use me. He’s never going to let me go, now. Never. Maybe I’m a weapon too. Maybe I—”

Dean slammed his hands against the house on either side of Sam’s head, trapping him there. “Shut up!” He could taste the tang of fear in his mouth. “We’ve been over this already. I don’t care why the hell he wants you or what you can do. You aren’t his weird-ass hunting tool. You don’t belong to him at all, remember?”

Sammy was breathing in quick, shallow gasps like rabbit breaths. His eyes were locked on Dean, like it was his last chance. His terror made it easier for Dean to say the words. He would have said anything to get that look off Sam’s face.

“You belong to me, Sam. My brother.” Dean brought his face very close, like Sam had earlier that week, but with none of the playful gentleness. He bared his teeth, feeling out of control, terrified, dangerous. “I don’t share my stuff. Not with him, not with anybody.”

Sammy let his head fall back against the wall with a soft thump. The desperation was fading from his eyes, and Dean didn’t want to think about why.

“Sammy.” His own ferocity had melted along with his brother’s fear. He felt tired and sad and sorry. “This is so messed up.”

“It’s going to get worse,” Sam said. He looked at Dean steadily. “Once he figures out what I can do.”

“I know.”

“You have to keep me from him,” Sam said. He reached up and locked his hands around Dean’s wrists. “What he wants—it scares me. I think he wants me to be dark like him.”

“What does that mean?”

“I can’t explain it. It’s bad.”

“Well, don’t worry about it, because that’s not going to happen to you.” Dean put all the confidence he had and more into his voice, repeating the words he had said as a kid. “I won’t let them take you.”

The words rung a smile out of his little brother. “I know,” he said.

Sign and countersign. Password accepted.

 

 

It didn’t take them long to figure out that it wasn’t just visions. Before their two weeks in Nebraska were up, Sam had flattened a field of corn and actually managed to bend the spoon Dean was using to eat cereal.

Sam had passed from being afraid to being curious and maybe a little excited. Dean acted like it wasn’t that big of a deal, so Sam took his cue from him. The visions really sucked, because they were scary and painful, but the telekinesis was undeniably awesome. Dean made Sam practice every day until he could sort of aim it, exploding glass bottles on the yard until his head ached.

Their dad was due back the next day.

“We could run,” Sam said. They were sitting on the porch steps, dread thickening the air. “You and me. Get away from him.”

Dean shook his head slowly. “I want to, but we can’t,” he said. “The demons are after us. Remember last month in Atlanta? They would have killed us if he hadn’t been there. I can’t protect us. Not yet.”

“They’re after _me_ ,” Sam corrected. “You could—”

Dean pushed him off the steps.

“No, Sam,” he said, looking down at him. “Just no.”

It was easier to hide his abilities from his dad than Sam had feared. His dad had never really paid much attention to them anyway, carting them around like baggage. The visions didn’t come again, and Sam was careful to hold his power inside him whenever he could.

Eventually, he started to relax. Dean’s face lost that horrible tightness around his eyes.

“I think we’re going to be okay,” Dean said one night before they fell asleep.

Sam was young enough to believe him.

 

 

When school started, dad landed them in New York, South Dakota. Dean snickered for days about the name. Sam didn’t think it was that funny, but Dean laughing was his favorite sound, so he filched a postcard that said I LOVE NY, SD! from the gas station and put it on their bed. Dean stuck it up on the refrigerator. Middle school was okay. Sam didn’t really care about school anymore, except that it gave him an excuse not to be at home. Dean was still technically enrolled, but skipped most days, and Sam was planning on doing the same. But school had one perk: Sam made a friend.

His name was Toby, a skinny, speckled kid who liked graphic novels and model airplanes. That fall, Sam learned to recognize all the World War II planes as his grades hit new lows. It was the fall when he got his first invitation to go over to someone’s house after school. Dad was gone—he’d been leaving to hunt demons more and more frequently over the last year—and so Sam had accepted.

It turned out that Toby’s house was huge, with white walls and carpet, and a thick cloud of silence that they tried their best to break. They goofed off for a few hours, making each other laugh and talking about Barbra Doyle, who was way too gorgeous to ever notice them. The silence retreated to the corners, but Sam could still feel it there, lurking like black demon smoke.

Toby’s mom was named Cindy, and she came home when they were sitting on the couch, reading one of Toby’s comic books. Sam sat up and took notice. Mothers were an unknown, and any time he got a chance to watch them, he studied.

She put her hand on Toby’s head and tugged his hair lightly, lovingly. Like Dean did sometimes, for no reason at all, just because Sam was within arm’s reach.

Except Sam never wriggled out from under Dean’s hand like Toby did.

It got late, and Toby said, “Hey, Sam, you should just stay overnight and come to school with me tomorrow.”

Sam was pleased to be asked. Sleeping over sounded like a thing normal people did. So he pushed down the part of him that didn’t want to stay in this empty house. “Sure. That sounds good. Just let me—I’ve gotta call my brother and let him know.”

It rang several times before Dean answered, his voice almost buried under the sound of music and chatter in the background.

“Sammy! You finally done slumming it in suburbia?”

Sam grinned into the phone. “Sounds like you’re having a good time.”

“Well hey, a man’s brother abandons him, what other choice has he got?”

“I can tell you’re suffering.”

“What? Sorry, man, I can’t hear you over the sound of all the fun I’m having.”

Sam laughed. “I just wanted to tell you that Toby invited me to stay over at his place tonight.”

“Look at you, mister popular.” Dean’s voice was warm and just a little bit wary. “Is it safe?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“And you’re good?”

It was their new code for _Crazy psychic powers under control?_

“I’m good.”

“Okie-dokie then. You party it up. See you tomorrow after school.”

Sam absolutely did not feel bereft that Dean had let him stay so easily. He _didn’t_. “Yeah. See you tomorrow.”

Toby had two beds in his room, and Sam was apparently supposed to sleep in one. Alone. He didn’t remember a time when he had slept alone. The bed felt cold and huge and too open. Dean always curved towards Sam in his sleep, fencing him in, protecting him from the rest of the world. From John. And sure, it drove Sam completely nuts, especially in the summer when it was too hot, or the winter when Dean hogged all the blankets—but Sam lay awake in the empty bed, unable to sleep.

He felt light, untethered, like he could float right out of his body. He couldn’t breathe.

Sam wanted his Dean.

He kicked back his covers and slipped out of bed. Their tiny rental house was only a few miles away, Sam could be there in no time. Toby slept, completely unaware.

It was all going well until he reached the front door. The house was dark, lit dimly by streetlights outside. Toby’s mother, wrapped in a purple bathrobe, walked quickly down the stairs.

“Sam, honey, is everything all right?”

“Yes,” he said. His hand was on the doorknob. “I just need to go.” Because it seemed polite, he added, “Thanks for having me.”

He tried to open the door, but Cindy stood in front of it, blocking his way. “Sam, I can’t let you walk out of here in the middle of the night!”

Sam was getting impatient. “I’ll be okay. Please move.”

“Just stay until the morning, sweetie.”

“Get out of the way.”

“No, Sam. It’s not safe!”

Sam felt power grow in his limbs, making them strong. He was sick of this house and sick of mothers.

Sam wanted his Dean.

With a flick of his fingers, Cindy was shoved aside by invisible hands. The door unlocked itself and swung open. Sam shouldered his way out, seeing but not caring about the horror on Cindy’s face as she watched, pinned to the wall.

He jogged most of the five miles back to the house, and he felt like he was floating. He unlocked the door without a key and slipped inside, expecting Dean to be passed out in the bedroom.

Instead, Dean was on the couch, watching some black and white monster movie with the sound turned low. He looked surprised to see Sam, half rising off the couch.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” Sam dropped his backpack on the ground and kicked off his shoes.

“I thought you were spending the night with your geek buddy.”

“Was.” Sam crawled over his brother and wedged his way between the back of the couch and Dean, making Dean a wall to keep himself inside himself. “Wanted to come home.”

Dean grumbled and squirmed, but he made room for Sam and he didn’t ask questions.

Sam felt solid again. Dean’s back pressed against his chest was a grounding pressure.

“You couldn’t sleep without me,” Sam said, butting his head against Dean’s shoulder.

“Shut up, bitch.”

“Okay, jerk.”

 

 

The demon would always remember New York, South Dakota, as the beginning. He had been leaving the Winchesters alone as Sam continued to resist claiming and didn’t develop any interesting powers. Instead, Azazel had been visiting other nurseries and checking up on the children that already had his blood, all in various stages of development, none with obvious powers yet.

He finished early this time and headed back to surprise the boys. He liked to pop in unexpectedly, just to see what they were up to in his absence.

He pulled into the driveway at about five in the morning. He walked in quietly, with all the stealth John Winchester’s body could muster. The television was on in the living room, and the demon headed there first. He paused at the threshold and looked.

At first, it was fine. Dean Winchester lolling unattractively halfway off the couch, asleep. Kid had a drool problem.

But then the demon realized he wasn’t alone. Samuel Winchester was asleep too, pressed against Dean’s side like he’d been molded to fit there.

Samuel wasn’t supposed to trust other people this much. He was in the middle of being claimed by a demon. He most definitely wasn’t supposed to have a fist full of Dean’s shirt, like he was using it to anchor himself.

Azazel had hated Dean Winchester on principle for a very long time, so what he felt now went beyond hatred.

Because he knew then what should have been obvious a long time ago. If he hadn’t been rushing around the country building his human army, he would have seen it sooner.

Dean Winchester had claimed the demon’s human.

 

 

He had been shouting for so long that his voice had faded to a hoarse rasp. He had fought so long against the power pinning him to the wall that he was trembling, and if demon power hadn’t been holding him up against the bathroom tile, he would have fallen.

But Dean didn’t stop shouting and he didn’t stop fighting, because he was locked in the bathroom and Sam was somewhere in the house with a demon. Dean had started yelling when he heard Sam’s first scream, bitten off at the end, like his brother had clamped his teeth shut around the pain. He had kept it up because he didn’t want Sam to think he was alone.

Dean was stupid. So, so stupid. He had lots of time to think while pinned against the pink tile, and that was always his conclusion.

His father had taught him that demons could be stabbed and hated holy water. His father had never given him a demon knife unless he was out of town and never touched the holy water.

His father had refused to teach them exorcisms, even when it was obvious that the demons were coming after them.

Turns out his father had never been human, so Dean was basically the worst demon hunter in the entire world. He was an even worse big brother, and oh god, _Sammy, where was Sammy?_

The doorknob turned, and Dean almost closed his eyes, almost didn’t want to see what came through the door. Because if it was John (the demon, but had he never really known John as John, and so John was the demon’s name too) covered in Sam’s blood, Dean was going to kill that son of a bitch and then kill himself.

But he kept his eyes open, and so he was able to see John stride in, a big grin on his face. Sam— _alivealivealive—_ limped behind him.

“You understand how this works, Samuel?” the demon asked. It was no different than dozens of times John Winchester had asked the same question after slapping Dean around. It wasn’t hard to believe he’d always been possessed. In fact, it made more sense than the alternative.

Dean only had eyes for Sam, his Sammy, who nodded. The demon grabbed Sam’s arm and dragged him forward, practically throwing him at Dean. Sam had blood on his mouth and his cheek, and his eyes held a blankness that went beyond terror.

“Who’s are you?” the demon asked.

Sam swallowed.

“Sammy—” Dean croaked, but the demon shut his mouth with an invisible gag.

“Samuel,” the demon said, his voice rumbling low. Dean saw Sam’s whole body flinch in reaction to that voice. What had happened? What had that demon done Dean’s Sam?

“Who’s are you?”

Sam, face smeared with blood, gangly and skinny in clothes that didn’t fit. Sam, who hadn’t screamed, who was Dean’s kid, Dean’s baby brother. That Sam looked Dean right in the eye and said, “Yours.”

And the demon smiled, slow and cruel, thinking he’d won even though Dean understood what Sam had meant. He did close his eyes then, to block out the sight of this brave, strong Sam who didn’t think he belonged to himself because Dean had told him he didn’t.

The demon said, “Now that we’re being honest with each other, we have a lot of training to do, Samuel.”

“You promised,” Sam said, voice flat, expressionless.

“I know, I know,” the demon soothed. “And I will keep my promises to you, Samuel. Have your way with your little human pet. I will be here when you’re finished. I will always be here.”

The demon left the room, and the pressure holding Dean to the wall suddenly vanished. He staggered, but caught himself on the sink. Sam turned without a word and limped down the hall to their bedroom. Dean gripped the sink for several seconds and breathed. Then he grabbed a washcloth from the shower, wet it with warm water, and followed his little brother.

Sam was standing in the middle of the bedroom, still and silent and white, except for the splashes of red on his face. Dean closed the door and locked it, even though that didn’t matter, because there was a demon in the house.

Dean approached slowly, because he didn’t know what to do. The blankness in Sam’s eyes stole his words, and all he could say was, “Sammy.”

Sam shook his head, like he did when he didn’t want to talk. Dean was so afraid that if he tried to touch his brother, Sam would flinch away from him like he had from John, and that would be it, and Dean would be destroyed.

But his little brother had blood on his face, and so Dean gently, oh so gently, touched the washcloth to his cheek.

Sam did not flinch away.

Dean ran the cloth over Sam’s cheeks, his lips, the corner of his mouth. There were no cuts—it wasn’t Sam’s blood.

At some point, Sam’s eyelids had closed. He was starting to come apart, tremors shaking his body in short bursts. Dean finished washing his brother’s face and stood there, helpless, not knowing what he was supposed to do.

“He used to feed me his blood when I was a baby too,” Sam said. His voice was hoarse. He kept his eyes shut. “I’d forgotten that. That explains the freaky mind powers. Demon blood. We could bottle it and sell it.”

“Sam, what did he do to you?”

Sam finally opened his eyes and looked at Dean. “Don’t. I don’t want—I don’t—” His mouth crumpled into a devastated, helpless shape. “He made me into a demon monster when I was a baby. This was just reminding me.”

Dean dropped the washcloth and wrapped his arms around his little brother, feeling the skinny, bony shape of him. He knew his brother’s body—would recognize it if he was blind and deaf just by the feeling of his muscles and bones.

“Where did he hurt you?”

For the first time in his life, Sam stood still in his hug, not returning the embrace, just standing. “Dean,” he said, sounding exhausted and sick, “he’s a demon and he thinks my body belongs to him. He hurt me everywhere.”

“Show me.”

Bruises on his brother’s arms, his chest, his back. Different kinds of bruises on his neck, the kind Dean knew were made by lips that sucked too hard. Sam sat on the edge of the bed, shirtless, displaying them. The hollowness hadn’t left his eyes. He sat there like it was penance, like he expected to be punished.

He had called himself a monster.

Dean brushed his fingers, feather light, whisper soft, over every dark mark on his brother’s skin. It didn’t make sense, but Dean didn’t want the demon’s fingers to be the last things to touch these places. He wanted to take them back, reclaim Sam’s skin. He wasn’t thinking straight. He was shaking and panicked and grief-stricken. He climbed on the bed behind Sam and traced the long scratches that blazed red on his back.

And somehow, it was the right thing to do. It was right, and so Dean rubbed his thumb over those horrible, worst marks on Sam’s neck too, erasing them.

“You’re not a monster, Sam,” Dean said. “You know what you are?”

“Your brother,” Sam whispered.

“No. I mean, yeah, obviously,” Dean added, when the panic started to grow on Sam’s face. “But you’re Sam too. Just Sam.”

“I don’t want to be just Sam. I want to be your brother Sam!” And yeah, awesome job Dean, because Sam was gearing up for a full-blown panic attack, complete with the hyperventilating.

“Okay, kid. Okay. You’re my pain in the ass, bitch of a baby brother Sam.”

And finally, _finally_ , Sam turned around and reached for him. Dean held him tightly, and Sam made a broken noise deep in his throat. Then he was twisting in Dean’s grip, curling himself up as small as he could go, pulling Dean around him like a shield. Dean wrapped himself around Sam and imagined himself hard as steel so that nothing would hurt them again.

 

 

Reintroducing the demon’s blood into Sam’s diet made Sam’s brain a strange, alien thing. His powers were out of control again, as wild and unpredictable as they had been in the beginning. John seemed delighted, and kept slicing open his wrist for Sam again and again. Sam drank it every time, because it was part of their deal. He cooperated and the demon didn’t hurt Dean.

Every time Sam wiped blood off his face or practiced exploding cans, he felt a bitter triumph. Dean had protected him their whole lives, and now Sam was protecting Dean.

The demon had taken all their weapons and New York, South Dakota was long gone. They were living in an old cabin somewhere in Minnesota which the demon never let them leave. Dean was going nuts, pacing the rooms with crazed energy. The only time they were allowed outside was when Sam practiced moving things with his mind, and even then, the demon was there watching, ready to stop them if they ran.

They wouldn’t run, though, because they both knew that this was it. The demon had killed their parents and it wanted Sam. Running away wouldn’t end this.

Sam felt like a stranger in his own body. Sometimes, when things got really bad, it was like he wasn’t even in his body at all, like he was watching the demon hurt someone else.

Dean kept him sane, protecting him even now. He had never been afraid of touching Sam, unlike most guys around their brothers. But now he touched Sam all the time, little shoulder bumps, a hand on Sam’s arm, or curled tightly around him at night. Sam never told him, but the contact felt like the only thing tethering him to his body. If Dean stopped, Sam thought he would drift away entirely.

He didn’t think that was normal, to feel that way, but they had bigger problems.

“I can’t do it.”

“You can, Samuel, you just aren’t trying.” The demon was stalking around the cabin tonight, asking Sam to do the impossible. “You have the powers. I told you, you’re…”

“Special. I know.” Sometimes it was frighteningly easy to forget that John was a demon and to slip back into the old ways of talking back to his dad. “But I can’t read minds.”

Dean sat next to him on top the rickety table amid the remains of their instant macaroni and cheese dinner. Dean tipped his head toward Sam and rolled his eyes, which meant _This dude is crazy_.

Sam kicked Dean’s foot. “I can’t,” he repeated. “And believe me, I’ve been trying. If I could read your mind, I’d be able to find out how to kill you.”

The demon liked that. Sam was learning just how much back-talk he could get away with. “You do have the motivation, it’s true. But you can, so keep trying, kiddo.” The demon turned to advance on them, hungry eyes on Dean. “Because if you don’t, you know what happens to your pet.”

If anything in the last several weeks could have been funny, it would have been the demon’s idea that Dean belonged to Sam.

“Fine, I’ll try.”

Sam let himself relax, opened his new, alien mind. Demons couldn’t read minds either, so it’s not like he had a good teacher on this.

There was nothing.

John tisked. “Ah well,” he said cheerfully. “There’s always tomorrow.” He was directly in front of them suddenly, too fast for a human. “What do you think, Dean-o?”

“I think you’re a crazy bastard with bad taste in nicknames,” Dean said.

John sighed. “Ah, Dean. When Samuel gets tired of you, I am going to enjoy killing you so very much.”

“It’s good to have goals,” Dean said.

Sam kicked him again.

              

 

His daughter found him not long after, and he was glad to see her. She had chosen a female body with blonde hair cropped short and a killer’s smile. When she walked right through his wards, he was waiting outside the cabin, smiling his approval.

“How is the batch in the Mid-West?” he asked.

“Nice to see you too, Daddy,” she said. She kissed him on the lips, their smiles pressed up against each other. “Doing fine. Still small. How do humans get anything done when they take so long to grow?”

“They are rather useless.”

“Except for Winchester,” his daughter said.

The demon raised John’s Winchester’s shoulders. “You feel it, don’t you? Even outside.”

“I could feel it halfway across the forest.” She closed her body’s eyes. “The _power_. It hums inside him. No wonder hell was so interested.”

“He is progressing slowly.”

“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Help you with your little Samuel problem? I’ll poke around in his head and see what’s holding him back. Let me see him, Daddy,” she begged. “I’ve waited so long and I’ve been so good.”

“Come along then,” he said indulgently. “Let’s go see my little human.”

They walked together, silent like humans never could be. His daughter paused them at the door to listen. Azazel followed her lead—he hadn’t spied on the humans since he’d claimed Samuel for good and brought them to this wilderness. There hadn’t been much of a point. Samuel had been doing everything that was asked of him.

“All I’m saying is that Rogue’s powers would be the best ones. I mean, I could totally defeat anyone I wanted.”

It was Dean Winchester’s voice, brash and forceful.

Then Samuel, quietly, “No way. Her powers suck.”

“Mutant snob.”

“They suck. If you had that power, I’d just die all the time because you’d forget and touch me. And that would suck. And then you’d be mad at me for dying and that would suck too.”

“I would not forget!”

“Ok, so you would remember and never touch me and I’d die from that.”

“Sammy, has anyone ever told you that they appreciate your cheerful optimism?”

“No.”

“Well damn, that’s a surprise. So who would you choose? Tell me it’s Wolverine and I’ll finally stop calling you a baby, I promise.”

“I already have superpowers, it’s really not that pointy of a game anymore.”

“Not _pointy_? Sam, you say weird things.”

“Dean, you do weird things.”

“Sam, you’re avoiding the question.”

“Dean, I know, I’m doing it on purpose so I can think.”

“Fine. While you think, stop leaning forward so much. Your neck is in knots and my arms aren’t that long.”

“Mmph. Ow.”

“Baby.”

“ _Oww_ Dean.”

“Really? You’re three years old.”

“M’not.”

“Sure, whatever you say.”

“I’d like Storm’s power,” Samuel said. “I’ve always wanted to make the sun shine whenever I wanted.”

Dean Winchester said, in a voice that was suddenly low and full of something, “Sam.”

And Samuel said, “Yeah, yeah. Jerk.”

After that, there were no more words. Azazel shrugged at his daughter and almost went inside, but she shook her head and motioned them away from the cabin, where they could talk again.

“I thought you wanted to see him,” the demon said.

“I don’t have to see him,” she said. Her human’s eyes were flashing, her face twisting between angry and amused. “Father, I know what’s wrong with Samuel Winchester.”

“Oh?” he said sarcastically. “In such a short time, too. Pray tell.”

“He has been claimed,” his daughter said. “But not by you.”

The demon felt the red rage rise inside him, claw its way up his throat. “No. I stopped that nonsense.”

“Humans are tricky,” his daughter said. “Do you still not know that, after living in one for all these years? Their claims are not like ours. They’re strong. Powerful.”

“We can break it,” the Azazal said. “We will, if I have to break Dean Winchester bone by bone.”

His daughter smiled. “Now that sounds like fun.”

              

              

The humans weren’t prepared when she and her father came for them. Humans were silly, hope-filled creatures underneath all their pretend cynicism. But hope didn’t stop her or her father from ripping them away from each other. Her father put Samuel in one of the cabin’s bedrooms and she put Dean in the other.

“You shouldn’t have interfered,” she told Dean Winchester. She had him pinned to the bedroom wall, and it was a good look on him.

“Shut up.”

“Stupid big brother,” she said. She stalked towards him, and he was putting on a good show of not being afraid. He really was yummy. “You shouldn’t have loved him,” she said, and when she kissed him, she did so gently.

When she pulled away, Dean was laughing. He stopped fighting her control and let his head thunk back against the wall.

“You won’t be laughing much longer,” she said, her voice full of promise.

“It’s just funny,” Dean explained. “It’s funny that you think I could have _not_ loved him.”

“I’m a demon,” she said. “It’s different for me.” She kissed him again, trying to taste his confidence on his lips, trying to catch the flavor of human love. She kissed him for a long time, but all she could taste was the salt of his blood.

“Who are you again?” Dean asked, a bit breathless when she pulled away again. “Normally I like to know the names of demon chicks who rape-kiss me.”

“Call me Meg,” she said. “I’m here to break your claim on Samuel.”

Dean laughed again, right into her face. “Sweetheart, you can try.”

 

 

The days had changed into Sam’s worst nightmare. He was living a nightmare all the time, and he was living it right now, watching his brother’s body stretched out on the floor of the cabin by the demons’ powers. Dean’s hands were above his head, and somehow that was the worst part, because Dean’s armpits were ticklish. Dean never stretched his arms above his head because he hated being tickled.

John was holding Sam immobile.

“This is good for you to see.” John’s mouth was so close that it brushed Sam’s ear. He didn’t need to stand that close, but he had always liked touching Sam this way—gut-clenching touches that sent sparks of fear stinging across Sam’s skin. “It is good for you to see what happens to thieves.”

Sam didn’t have a body. Or, he did, but they had kept him away from Dean for days and he had forgotten he belonged in it. Sam, the real Sam, was floating somewhere watching all of this from afar. He felt cold and numb. Even when the demons touched him, he felt nothing.

Dean didn’t have a shirt—where had his shirt gone? When had that happened? Sometime when Sam was in his foggy haze.

Meg’s hands were on his brother everywhere. Her nails were sharp enough to break his skin, and they did.

Anger sliced through Sam like a hot knife, cutting away at the fog. Because she had no right. Because Sam was Dean’s, sure, but Dean was also _Sam’s._

“Don’t touch,” he said.

He hadn’t spoken since they’d taken him away from Dean.

Meg bent her head down close to Dean’s throat— _too close too close_ —and bared her teeth in a smile. “Ooh, the boy-king speaks.”

Dean’s eyes flicked to him desperately. Then he looked at Meg again, and back at Sam.

Sam followed his brother’s eyes to the demon knife in the waistband of Meg’s jeans. He had seen what his brother could do to demons with a knife like that.

Sam didn’t try to squirm in John’s demon grip. He held completely still and waited while power started filling him up from the inside. He was awake again, the fog burned away by his fury.

“Samuel,” the demon rumbled.

Power filled Sam up like molten gold. When he flicked his eyes to focus on Meg, he remembered the demon trying to teach him about telepathy. Reach inside, deep inside, and tug the doors of their mind open.

Sam sent his power curling into Meg’s head. He reached deep, deep. But he didn’t find her mind—he found a demon’s swirling blackness.

He grabbed that blackness and _tugged_.

Meg’s body jerked and her power fizzled out as black smoke started to drift out of her mouth. Maybe Sam could have dragged all the demon out of the body, but Dean was faster. He snatched the demon knife and stabbed Meg in the throat. There was a sputtering sound of demon fire dying.

John’s hands were impossibly tight around his arms now.

“Samuel, what have you done?”

Dean was standing upright, poised with the knife. Sam took all his power and shoved it at the demon. John’s hands loosened as he staggered back, and Sam ripped himself away.

“My name,” Sam said, sinking into a crouch beside Dean, “is not Samuel.”

 

 

Dean was exhilarated and terrified and hurt and triumphant.

Dean was a strong grip on the knife handle, slippery with demon blood.

Dean was next to his brother again, for the first time in days.

His brother, incidentally, was a badass. A skinny, floppy-haired badass with magical demon-vanquishing powers.

It was that brother ( _samsamsammy_ ) who was keeping them alive now. Somehow. He had his hands out and his eyes closed and he was doing _something_.

Because John was standing there twitching, and he wasn’t moving.

But he wasn’t starting to smoke at the mouth either, and Sam was starting to breathe hard.

John took a step forward. “You think you can banish me to hell with that trick?” he said. His voice was guttural and barely human. He lurched forward another step. “I made you!”

Sam opened his eyes, and when he did, they were black. Black like a demon’s.

“You’re mine, Samuel,” the demon said. He took another halting step, like he was fighting against high water.

Sam was starting to shake now, standing beside Dean with his hands stretched out in front of him.

“Mine…” the demon hissed, moving close. “Mine, mi—“

Dean stabbed him in the face.

The demon shrieked and reeled back, holding his hands over his forehead. He was sputtering and sparking, but not going out, as Meg had. Instead, the black smoke started trickling upwards. The demon was trying to escape the body.

Yeah, no. That wasn’t going to happen.

“Sam!” Dean shouted, lunging across the room after it.

His brother heard him, and he must have understood. Because the black smoke was suddenly sucked back into John’s mouth, just as Dean stabbed him again. Right in the stomach this time.

_(Don’t think about how this body hugged you and played catch with you in the lawn and kissed Mommy all those years ago. Don’t.)_

“Hurry!” Sam yelled, and his voice sounded broken.

This body had hurt his brother. This body had made his brother sound like that.

This body was easy to kill.

Dean stabbed the demon again. There was blood in his eyes, blood on his hands.

The demon’s light stuttered and fizzled. And then it was just gone, just _pfft_. Like a light bulb burning out.

The empty body slumped to the floor, and Dean let the knife fall with it.

 

 

Sam felt the demon die. He felt it like he was breathing for the first time. His powers were used up, and he staggered. Not from the weakness exactly, but from the incredible lightness of freedom.

 

 

Dean was trembling, so weak that he couldn’t stand. So he didn’t. He slumped down to the floor and sat. Sam stumbled over to him and dropped down right in the little nest made by Dean’s crossed legs.

Dean looked him right in the eyes, and they were light brown again. Normal. Sam-like.

“Hey there, little brother,” Dean said.

Sam smiled at him, dimpling his cheeks. “Hey.” He wrapped his arms around Dean’s naked, blood-soaked chest and rested his chin on Dean’s shoulder. “Hey Dean,” he whispered, right into his skin.

Dean held him because there was no one to stop him. “We just—” he didn’t know how to end the sentence. _Saved ourselves from the demon? Wasted John Winchester? Murdered our dad?_

“I know.”

“You okay?”

Sam snuggled even closer, if that was possible. “Yeah. I’m not sorry we did it.”

“Me neither.”

Because there might have been a bit of John Winchester the father left inside that body, but the majority of it had been John Winchester the demon.

“Dude, I think you preformed a reverse exorcism with your mind.”

Sam laughed, and the feel of it was warm on Dean’s cold skin. “Yeah. I think I did.”

“But you totally needed me to waste him.”

“I could have figured it out.”

“Totally. Needed. Me.” Dean poked his fingers into Sam’s ribs with every word.

“We already knew that.”

They sat like that for a long time, feeling each other breathe. Sam’s fingers traced absent swirls on Dean’s back with wet demon blood.

“We can do anything we want,” Dean said, trying to slip his voice into the quiet so Sam wouldn’t startle.

“There are still going to be demons after me.”

“Yeah, after what we just did, I’m not exactly worried about that, Sammy.”

“Then I want to go to California,” Sam said.

“Okay, then I want to see the Grand Canyon.”

“Finish school.”

“Learn more about hunting demons.”

“Practice my powers.”

“Get a house.”

“Drive the Impala.”

“Oh hell no,” Dean said. “I’ve had my eye on that baby for years and you’re not moving in on my territory.”

Sam bit him. Right on the shoulder.

“Ugh!” Dean flung himself forward, squishing Sam between his chest and the floor. “We have a rule about biting!”

They were in a house with two dead bodies, covered in blood, completely tangled up in each other and laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe. It was probably wrong. It was definitely a little weird.

Dean propped himself up on his elbows so he didn’t suffocate the little biter. Sam was relaxed and smiling in a way Dean had thought he’d never get to see again.

“My brother,” Dean said.

Sam reached up and touched Dean’s nose with a bloody finger. “ _My_ brother,” he said.

And there it was. The only thing that mattered, that would ever matter.

Let the demons try to take this from them again. Let them just _try._

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, bloody and desperate....just how I like my boys.


End file.
